With so much of parenting being unknown and unfamiliar, it can make us worry a lot because we tend to fear things we don’t understand. How do we trust more and worry less?

Meet Shelby Spear, mother of three college-aged children, who shares a unique perspective on parenting now that her children are out of the house. As she looks back, she reflects on how important it is to trust instead of over protect.

As a self-proclaimed ‘worrier,’ she admits allowing trust is easier said than done. Examining our worries is worth the effort at any stage of parenthood to ensure we don’t model a life of worrying, which could set our children back from wholeheartedly living their own lives.

Our children are just with us for a short time teaching us what we need to grow just as we are teaching them. We have to trust them and ourselves to make the most out of our precious fleeting time with them.

In this heartfelt chat, we’ll discuss:

How children are our greatest teachers opening up things in us we didn’t even know existed

Value of one-on-one time with our children and no-consequence conversations as they got older

That our teenagers’ brains are crazy

Self-discovery and looking at our fears with a sense of reason

Prioritizing time to communicate with our spouse so we grow together through parenting, not apart

She’ll also share a life recipe for winning the heart battle, and choosing love over fear. Thanks for joining us as we hear Shelby’s motherhood story.

Life Recipe:How to Overcome the Heart Battle: Allowing Love to Conquer Fear

Ingredients:

Honesty – Be honest with yourself about your fears in parenting

Perspective – Look at your fears through a lens of reason

Prayer – Pray for the strength to surrender your fears to God

Method:

Understanding our fears in parenting requires mindful discernment of our emotional state related to certain situations. This self-discovery illuminates our fears and may even bring to attention fears we were unaware of. After our fears are unveiled, we need to gain a healthy perspective about each one and ask ourselves if our concerns are warranted or more of a reflection of our own weaknesses, past experiences, etc. Any fears in the column of overreacting need special attention and healing work. Left unattended, irrational fears can harm our children more than protect them.

If we model fear and over protect, we can inadvertently inhibit our children’s growth, set them up for a life of worry, or create a relationship that is strained from hovering. Love binds, fear separates. For me, prayer continues to be my weapon against this debilitating heart battle. Daily I need to ask God for the strength to surrender not only my fears, but my children into His loving hands. Our children are not ours after all, they are a gift, on loan from a loving God who feels we are worthy of the call of motherhood. At the end of the day, He’s got this…we just need to Trust. Which is easier said than done. But His love for us is incomprehensible in comparison to the love we have for our children. And if we would do ANYTHING to protect our kids, we have to believe He will do the same for us and then some…to infinity.

Quotes from Shelby during podcast

“Some things are not worth worrying about. We have to trust. My children are my greatest teachers”

“They help me be a better person all around and teach me things about life I would have newer noticed.”

“We as mothers have to accept as much help as possible and be a community for each other because its always a struggle to balance it all.”

“We come into the marriage with different ideas of what parenting looks like. I was brought up a certain way, he was brought up a certain way and its really about communicating.”

“We both feel strongly at the end of the day we need to support one another.”

“If i am modeling worry to them, are they going to be worriers? Those are the questions need to ask.”

“Life happens and we react. We don’t know how we are going to react. My fears don’t always help. We have to think rationally.”

“Worrying too much can set them back.I don’t allow them to have experiences that might be good for them because I fear something bad could happen or its not the right things for them”

Shelby is a Christian mom to three beautiful knuckleheads who have left her with an empty nest in which to ponder what the mom thing has (done to her) meant over the past twenty-two years. You can read her open book of revelations, screw-ups, gaffs, and joys at http://shelbyspear.com